


That 70s Fic

by RowboatCop



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Coulson's Mother - Freeform, Day 3, F/M, Fluff, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Time Travel, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Wisconsin - Freeform, coulson feels, phil coulson is a sexy little deer, skoulsonfest2k16, time travel paradox objects are my favorite, why does it always have to be coulson feels?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 12:57:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5786086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/pseuds/RowboatCop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson & Daisy end up in Manitowoc in 1974. Coulson feels, fluff, and shipscuses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That 70s Fic

“Get the device!” Mack screams at her as he takes down their perp — it takes a whole three bullets from the ICER before the guy is out.

It’s some sort of really scary tech, all the scarier because Fitz and Simmons haven’t yet figured out what it does. They’ve determined that it runs off of power from a tesseract-looking crystal, though, so whatever it does can’t possibly be good.

She and Coulson move towards it on the Director’s command, diving for it together in a well-choreographed move, trying to turn it off before it does whatever nefarious thing it does — only to be caught in a flash of light.

Everything hurts for a minute, like she's been body-slammed into the ground.

“Shit,” she grunts and rolls backwards; the world is too blindingly white for her to make out Coulson for a moment, but she can hear him groaning next to her.

“You okay?” His voice is quiet, but loud enough that she can move towards him even if she can’t see.

“Yeah. Slightly blinded.”

“Me, too.”

“Mack?” She calls out, but hears nothing back, not even background noise from the rest of the team, not even _static_ from her earpiece.

“I think we must have teleported,” Coulson supplies, and she grunts her understanding as the world starts to come back into focus and she can see that the alleyway where they’ve been standing has vanished. They appear to be in an open field.

“Yeah. Should we…”

They both look down at the device together, equally tentative. Daisy is the one that grips Coulson’s hand and then touches it again, braced for something — anything — to happen.

Nothing does.

She’s oddly relieved.

“Bag this and then figure out where we are?”

He nods his agreement, and they stow away the device in a containment bag from her utility belt before wandering out of the lot and into the small nearby town. It looks like something out of the past, somewhere they could never belong.

The main street is lined with small wooden buildings with a few old cars parked in front, and yeah Manitowoc wasn’t exactly a bustling metropolis or anything, but this takes ‘small town’ to a new level.

“I'm feeling a little overdressed,” Coulson mumbles to her as they pass three men in overalls, and he runs a hand self-consciously down his tie.

“ _You're_ feeling overdressed?”

He laughs at that and scans his eyes down her fieldsuit, which makes her stick out _and_ is too warm for the summer weather.

“Fair enough. We can probably buy…”

He falls silent.

“Phil? We can buy what?”

She watches him as he swallows and then ducks into an alleyway, face white and hands suddenly shaking.

“Coulson,” she touches his right arm, brief and light, but lifts her hand away when he doesn’t respond. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

He laughs at that, but it's not a funny laugh.

“That device didn't transport us in space.”

It takes her a moment.

“Are you…”

“I...I know this place.”

"Okay...?"

"And I just saw my mother."

It hits her like a brick, and as much as her first instinct is to deny that it could be the case, it rings true.

“When?”

“It must be...the early seventies?”

He swallows.

“This is the part where we go find a newspaper, right?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead. “I should probably get somewhere safe where I can't…”

“Yeah.”

 

* * *

 

It doesn’t take them ten minutes to realize that they've somehow found themselves in 1974.

Of course, the most pressing problem is that they have no money — none that isn’t printed with dates in the future, none that they can _use_ anyways. So they wander back to the field where they landed, a very short walk through the very small town, and wind up ducking into an abandoned barn nearby. It’s a place, Coulson tells her with a strange touch of nostalgia, that he and his friends would ride their bikes, convinced it was haunted.

It doesn’t seem very haunted to her; just old and drafty and filled with hay.

Daisy sits down while Coulson freaks out, though he’s definitely pretending that that’s not what he’s doing. He walks out back, and she lets him go — she’s learned this well enough, she thinks, to let him have a moment before she tries to go to him.

Once she’s alone, she strips out of her jacket and accessories, hoping that she’ll fit in a little better in 1974 wearing just the black tank and pants.

When Coulson finally comes back into the barn, he’s carrying his jacket and tie, sleeves rolled up his arms.

“Are you okay?”

He nods once, and she can tell that he means it but that he’s also not fully okay.

“You want to see her, don't you?”

“Wouldn't you?”

“Yes,” she answers without hesitation, which gets her an amused smile from Coulson.

“I'm relatively certain that's the wrong move,” he tells her.

“Why, because it's what you _want_ to do?”

He frowns at that.

“Because there's no SHIELD protocol for time travel, but I think if there were a protocol it would be for non-interference.”

“There's no SHIELD protocol for time travel because we have no idea how it would work. I mean, you're assuming that time travel doesn't work like, you were _supposed_ to interfere.”

“So you're saying I'm supposed to meet my mother and my ten year old self.”

“I'm just saying that maybe you always already did.”

He squints at her for a moment, like he can't quite figure out if she's real.

“Let's look at the device and see…”

She examines him closely, unsure of how much to press on this, but nods once.

Daisy grips his hand as they open the bag where they’ve contained the device because she’s not stupid — she’s not going to touch any sort of teleportation mechanism without being in firm contact with him. Again, though, nothing happens.

“I think it might be that,” Coulson says, pointing at the scary crystal power-structure, which now has a large crack in it.

“Well, fuck.”

“Yeah.”

There’s no way they can repair a mysterious cracked crystal, and Daisy collapses backward on the ground, laying her head on her knees. Stuck in the middle of nowhere with no money, no clothes, no supplies — it’s a nightmare. At this point, her mother is still in China, she knows, and her father is a teenager. There’s no help there. And even if there were help there, she can’t even look forward to getting to know her parents, since that might, like, stop her from being born.

She’s really not sure if that’s something she should be worried about or not, her own possible existence, and tries to tell herself that it must work how she told Coulson — they’ve practically been here already.

Regardless, everything she owns and cares about is forty years in the future, and she feels that time and distance like a pressure on her chest.

“It’ll be okay,” Coulson tells her, his voice startlingly close before his hand lands on her back. She can feel him scooching up close to her, the warmth of him pleasant even though it’s already warm in the barn.

“Will it?”

His hand strokes softly down her spine, something she knows is meant to be a purely soothing gesture, but it makes something warm — hot — flare in her chest. It’s not fair of him to touch her like this, not when he’s usually more reticent about it, not when he’s been keeping his distance.

“Worst case scenario, we get in touch with SHIELD. Nick Fury should be with them by now, and he’ll figure out how we can lay low.”

“So, what, we just play house for a few decades?”

She can feel him freeze next to her, feel him lift his hand away, and she leans into him in response.

“I didn’t —”

“I’m sorry,” Daisy cuts him off, leaning in enough to lay her head against his shoulder.

“We’ll figure out how to get back, Daisy,” he promises her, voice solemn, but she misses his hand on her back.

“If we don’t, at least I’m stuck with you,” she answers. It feels fucking sad, but it’s true — he’s who she would choose, always.

“I’m sure you’d rather it was Lincoln —”

“Lincoln and I broke up,” she tells him, trying not to sound too pathetic about it, but also not wanting to listen to any ideas about how she must feel for Lincoln.

“When was that?”

“Weeks ago.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“When would I have done that, exactly? You’ve been kind of…”

Closed off. He’s been _really_ closed off, which is saying something because there have definitely been stretches before where Coulson has closed off.

Lately, though, they work together — they work _well_ together, they make a great field team — but they never really talk, like he keeps everything personal sealed off somewhere inside him. He’s been closed off for months, ever since everything went down with Rosalind, with Ward, with his trip to a distant dead planet. Really, since before that.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel like you couldn’t…”

“It’s okay, Coulson,” she sighs. “I didn’t want to talk about it anyways.”

“Why’d you break up with him?”

Daisy laughs and turns her head enough to press her forehead against Coulson’s neck, just above his collar, because she can. Because he seems to be okay with this, and maybe she's awful and opportunistic, but she's going to take advantage when he'll let her.

“Thanks for thinking I was the one that did the breaking up.”

“You weren’t?” His voice is so filled with disbelief, it makes her smile, and she can’t see his face, but she can imagine the way his eyes are crinkled, the way his mouth is pulled into a frown.

“No,” she sighs. “He said I wasn’t invested in _him_.”

“Was he right?”

“Probably,” Daisy answers.

It all feels selfish in retrospect, when it comes down to it, and he had been right to break it off. She was more interested in what Lincoln represented about her — about Inhumans — than in him as a person. Lincoln was never all that interesting as a person, and it was never fair to him that she felt that way.

“You’ll find someone better,” he tells her, like it’s not a platitude at all, like it’s just a truth, and she’s grateful for the millionth time that she has Coulson in her corner.

“In the 1970s?”

Coulson laughs and wraps his arm back around her, his hand warm and soft against her bare shoulder.

“We’ll figure this out,” he promises.

“I know.”

She closes her eyes and just enjoys being close to him, lets the exhaustion that comes after a fight with her powers, with a crash in adrenaline, overtake her.

“I’m glad I’m stuck with you,” she hears him whisper, or maybe just imagines, as she dozes off on his shoulder.

 

* * *

 

She wakes up with her face still pressed to Coulson’s neck when he startles awake first.

“Daisy,” he whispers. “Daisy I just realized something.”

“Hmm?”

“My father.”

“Your father?”

She sits up and stretches her back, a little disappointed when Coulson’s arm slips away.

“I didn’t find out for sure until I was inside of SHIELD. I don’t think my mother ever even knew.”

“Coulson?”

“My father was SHIELD. The reason they were moved to Wisconsin, the reason he was in teaching at all, was kind of witness protection.”

She blinks at him, trying to process that.

“There’s nothing about that in your files.”

“Fury erased it all,” he agrees, “I think he always knew that there were threats coming from inside of SHIELD.”

“But how does this help us?”

“After he died there was this one box among all his other old stuff…”

Coulson swallows and looks down at his lap, where he’s folded his hands, robotic one wrapped around the flesh one. Slowly, like she’s afraid of spooking him, she reaches out and sets her hand on top of the flesh-colored synthetic skin on his newest robotic hand.

He doesn’t brush her off, at least. He doesn’t tense or act like it’s unwelcome, so she takes it as a win.

“Phil?”

“When we started packing to move to Boston, I started going through all his boxes. That’s where the base of my collections came from, even though I didn’t complete them until years later — he had lots of Captain America comics and trading cards.”

“I didn’t know that,” she whispers, curling her fingers around the ones under her hand. He squeezes back, holding her hand as he continues.

“There was one box with...scary stuff. Weapons and tech, and I feel like…”

“You think he _had_ a crystal like this?”

“I think he had a crystal like this that disappeared.”

“Disappeared like...we took it?”

“I…”

“That is _so cool_ ,” she breathes, and he laughs, squeezing her hand tighter in his.

“I have this memory,” he tells her, voice quiet, “of how I got this watch.” He doesn’t release her hand enough to point, but he flexes his left wrist, where he’s been wearing a watch again since he adjusted to his newest lifelike prosthetic.

“Oh?”

“And it can’t… It can’t possibly be right?”

“Why?”

“Because it was a dream,” he answers, the kind of answer that tells her that he’s been telling himself this for most of his life.

“And what happened in the dream?”

“A spy with a robot hand gave it to me.”

Daisy squeezes his fingers harder, even though she knows he can’t really feel it, and Coulson drops his right hand on top of hers.

 

* * *

 

“We’re not breaking into my childhood home,” he tells her as they walk out of their barn and into the mid-afternoon sunshine.

“So now _you’re_ the one in favor of actually meeting your mother?”

“You’ll have to be the one to do it,” he tells her, and Daisy shakes her head.

“She’s not going to recognize you, you know. Even if you seem familiar, her first thought isn’t going to be ‘time traveling son from the future.’...Is it?”

“Probably not,” he admits.

“Because I don’t know your mother. Is she the type to jump to time travel?”

Coulson just laughs and looks over at her with unmistakable fondness.

“Maybe. She was a lot like you.”

She’s _excited_ about meeting his mother, she realizes. Like, how cool is this, to get to meet Phil Coulson’s mother?

“How do we find her?”

“It’s Saturday afternoon in the middle of the summer,” he answers, like it’s an actual answer.

Which, it turns out, it is. Saturday afternoon, he tells her, was when all the little league teams used to play, and most of the town would turn out to watch the games. When they get to the fields, the stands are mostly full, but it still only takes him a moment to pick out his mother, sitting by herself on the back row of the wooden bleachers.

She’s not exactly how Daisy would have pictured her. Young, for one thing — probably barely past 30 and pretty small, with short dark hair and her mouth turned downwards, like her face is permanently set to frown. Her first, super uncharitable, thought is that she looks a lot like what Rosalind Price probably looked like when _she_ was about 30, face all pulled into a permanent scowl. (And that maybe this explains why Phil has a type.)

But then something happens on the field behind them, where Daisy isn’t looking, and Coulson’s mother rises from her seat and jumps on the stands, visible in her enthusiasm even among the cheering crowd. Her smile is clear from half a baseball field away, especially when the rest of the crows sits down and she’s left standing on her seat, screaming _Go Phillip_ in a way that’s sure to embarrass ten year old Coulson.

Daisy loves her instantly.

“Did you just hit a homerun?”

“Yeah,” he answers, and they both turn to watch little baby Phil finish rounding the bases.

“I’m gonna go meet your mother, then?”

“I’ll see if I can find enough change for a pop and some kind of snack. You must be hungry.” He frowns at her. “You used your powers in that fight, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” she admits. She _is_ hungry.

He nods at her and they separate, Daisy picking her way up through the stands to an empty seat beside Coulson’s mother, who’s finally sitting down as baby Phil waves up at her from home plate.

“Was that your son?”

“Sure was,” the woman responds, smiling up at Daisy, and she wonders how she ever could have imagined Coulson’s mother would be cold. The frown lines around her mouth, the sadness in her eyes, those are the product of a hard year, of a recently deceased husband, and it makes her heart clench to think of a young mother out here being so enthusiastic when she must be hurting so much.

“My husband and I are visiting today, do you mind…”

“Not at all,” Coulson’s mom invites her to sit, and Daisy does her best to pretend that she doesn’t know this woman is Grace Coulson, that she’ll die in a little less than fourteen years, while Coulson is twenty three and still in the academy.

“Laura,” Daisy offers her hand.

“Grace,” Coulson’s mom replies, taking Daisy’s easily. “Is your husband —”

“Oh, he’s down at the refreshments, I think…” Coulson happens to look up at just the right moment, and the afternoon sunshine catches the perfect cut of his jaw, makes her breath catch as she looks down at him.

“Newlyweds,” Grace surmises easily, and Daisy can’t help the flush that crawls up her chest at the the idea that she looks at Coulson like a newlywed.

“Pretty new,” she agrees, waving down at Coulson and getting a bit of a confused wave back.

“And what brings you to Manitowoc?”

“Rob is from nearby,” Daisy answers easily, something she’s actually prepared to handle. “And we’re looking to get away from LA to settle down and start a family.”

“He must be anxious for that. More than a bit older than you, isn’t he?”

Grace squints down at Coulson, and Daisy feels a pang of fear that she’s somehow recognized him.

“Yes,” she admits, squirming a little at the dual fear of what Grace will make of her grown son and what Grace will say about her fake husband’s age.

“Hmm. My husband was older, too, don’t worry.”

“Is he…?”

“Passed,” Grace agrees, and there’s so much _Coulson_ in her expression, like Daisy can _see_ her closing off the sadness for a time when it’s more appropriate.

Daisy finds herself wanting to take the woman’s hand, like she took Coulson’s earlier, but holds herself back, doesn’t even offer her condolences because she knows this reaction, and she knows better than to push on emotions when Coulson isn’t ready to deal with them.

Instead, she swallows.

“Your son is good at this game,” she offers instead, a change of subject.

Grace looks so _grateful_ , and again, this look that’s so Coulson it hurts — Coulson’s smiling hazel eyes staring out at her from a stranger’s face.

“He is. He batted a .406 last season.” Grace pauses, a smirky smile slipping over her lips. “I have no idea what that means, but he’s very proud of it.”

Daisy laughs and settles in next to her.

“You’re very proud of him.”

“I am,” she agrees. “Just wait. Once you have one of your own, you can’t help it.”

Like a reflex, Daisy looks back down at Coulson, at the pensive way he’s looking up at his mother and then out at his younger self.

“I should go,” Daisy tells Grace. “Rob is looking...nostalgic.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Outside of town, we don’t have —”

“Then you have to come over for dinner,” Grace tells her, like it’s an obvious fact and not even an invitation.

“Oh, we couldn’t.”

“Phillip is out tonight, so it’ll be quiet anyways. You’d be doing me a favor. Everyone I know thinks of me as the sad new widow on the street.”

“I…”

“Seven. Here…” Grace digs through her purse and pulls out a scrap of paper and a pen to write down her address. “I’ll fill you in about your new town.”

“Thank you,” Daisy whispers, taking the paper. “I’ll see you then.”

Grace smiles up at her, such a familiar smile — Coulson got more than her eyes, she thinks — and then Daisy picks her way back down the stands and sidles up next to Coulson. Before she can speak, he hands her a candy bar, something chocolate and nougat.

Daisy smiles at that and unwraps her snack, eating it much too quickly — she’s been distracted by, well, _everything_ , but the fact is that she’s really hungry.

“Your mother invited us over for dinner,” she tells him through a mouthful of chocolate, not sure whether this is something to smirk about or not. “I’m guessing you’ll pass, though.”

Coulson nods, and she finishes her candy, throws out the wrapper.

“She must have really liked you,” he tells her a moment later, like it’s maybe really surprising. “She didn’t see a lot of people during the last year we lived here.”

She can't help but think about what Grace said, that all her friends and acquaintances think of her as the sad widow, but pushes aside that sadness.

“I’m very likeable,” she answers back, instead. “Especially to Coulsons.”

Daisy bumps her hip against his and watches him smile softly to himself as they turn away from the field, walking aimlessly.

“Yeah,” he whispers, like maybe she’s not supposed to hear it, but it makes her smile wider.

“I like her.”

“She was a great person,” he agrees.

“She's not what I expected.”

“No?”

“Well, she's so young.”

“Yeah. She was...only a little older than you when my dad was killed.”

It's striking, suddenly, the way they’re in different verb tenses, the way that for Coulson, his mother is still someone in the past, not the young woman in her early thirties she was _just_ talking to.

“She’ll die… She died young, too?”

“Brain cancer.” He swallows. “She was only 45. Seven years younger than I am now.”

She’s quiet for a moment, stuck in the sadness and the strangeness of this, of Coulson’s mother alive and well but also dead forever.

There’s an instinct to touch him again, to reach over and lay her hand on his arm, but she holds it back. She’s gotten good at this, after all, at letting him keep his emotions when he needs to, when he needs to hold together and not fall apart.

“I didn't realize your dad was older.”

Coulson takes a breath, and then lets out something like a chuckle.

“They met in college. My dad was just out of the military, about ten years older.”

“In the military was he connected to SHIELD then?”

“Yeah, I think so. There are still a lot of secrets.”

She nods, watching his profile as they approach the Main street, and she wonders what he sees when he looks at it, what it’s like to see the exact same place, the exact same moment with such different eyes.

It’s empty — most of the businesses closed — because apparently the town _really_ shuts down to watch the kids play baseball.

Daisy clears her throat.

“So you two have been on your own for a year now.”

“Less,” he answers with a shrug. “We moved to Boston, where her mother lived, about nine months after it happened. I think we moved...really soon after this.”

“That's good. That she'll get that support.”

“I was angry about it,” he tells her, like some guilty admission.

“You were a ten year old boy being forced to leave his friends.”

“I still made her life harder than I should have.”

She grabs his shoulder, a light touch, and pulls him to a stop.

“She _loves_ you,” Daisy tells him. “Like, a lot. The way she was looking at little you on the baseball field? Trust me, you make her life better.” It’s what she’d want someone to tell her, what her father _did_ tell her — that whatever pain her parents went through because of her, it was in some way worth it. That they loved her.

Coulson smiles at that, something wistful and nostalgic in his eyes.

“You should come with me to dinner tonight.”

“That’s a _terrible_ idea,” he answers, really _really_ unconvincingly.

“No, it’s a _great_ idea. You’ll get to see your mother, and who knows where to look for your father’s stuff better than you?”

“Daisy…”

“What about your memory about the watch?”

“That was a dream,” he dismisses. “Not…”

Daisy raises an eyebrow at him.

“Come to dinner, Phil. Tell me it doesn’t feel like the right thing to do.”

“Is that how you make decisions? What _feels_ right?”

“It hasn’t steered me wrong, yet,” she tells him, which is mostly not a lie.

Coulson looks at her again — this intense searching, like he’s trying to understand something — and then slowly breaks into a smile.

“Yeah, okay.”

“One thing, though...we’re, um, married.”

He blinks at her.

 

* * *

 

 

It is...awkward.

At least at first.

The moment they turn up the sidewalk to approach the front door, she can feel Coulson panicking, and she reaches over to take his right hand.

“Do you want to sit this out?”

“No,” he answers, shaking his head but also clutching tightly at her fingers. “No.”

He squeezes her hand again when Grace opens the door, barely manages to release her fingers from between his in order to reach out and shake his mother’s hand.

“Grace,” she introduces herself, and Daisy can see the conflicting emotions wash over Coulson’s face. He probably never knew his mother like this, she thinks — probably most kids who grow up normal, not like her, never knew their parents by their first names.

“Rob,” he answers once he finds his voice.

“Laura tells me you two are thinking of moving out here from the big city to start a family.”

Coulson shoots a look at Daisy, she can’t tell what it is — a little disbelief, maybe.

“Yeah," he covers well. "I grew up in a house...just like this one.”

“And you want your kids to have the same,” Grace fills in, like it’s normal, like they’re normal. As though anything about their lives would ever be as normal as a nice little house in a nice little town.

“Yeah,” he agrees, and Daisy can see him swallow, the movement of his throat like he’s swallowing down something big and frightening.

“It’s a good place to raise a family,” Grace tells them, moving her eyes back to Daisy. “Phillip and I are moving soon, actually, to be closer to his grandmother, but it’s really a shame.”

Coulson gets almost morose as Grace gives them a tour, and maybe she’s a horrible person for pressing him on this too hard. But, well, it’s not like she doesn’t get it to some extent — meeting a parent when they have no idea who you are, checking in just because you can, even though they’re gone. Maybe she shouldn’t have assumed that she and Coulson were so similar, though, that this would be what he wanted just because it would be what _she_ wanted.

It’s after they walk by little Phillip’s bedroom — a tidy space with a large Lego tower in the middle of the floor — that he excuses himself to the bathroom.

“Is he okay?” Grace asks, her voice quiet.

“Being around here hasn’t been easy for him. I think it reminds him too much of the family he’s lost.”

“Well, it’s a good thing he has you, then.”

Daisy smiles and excuses herself to go after him, finds him in the small upstairs bathroom next to the bedroom of his ten year old self.

He opens the door immediately, like he knew she’d show up, and his eyes are dry but red-rimmed, like maybe he’s stopped himself from crying.

“Do you need to go?”

“No,” he answers. “No, I’m okay. It’s just…”

“You’re talking to someone who’s dead. Who you mourned. But she’s also your mother, your family.”

He smiles at her, probably the saddest smile she’s ever seen, and then pulls her into a hug, his arms tight around her, his face buried against her hair.

“I’m sorry this is hard, Coulson.”

He shakes his head against hers.

“I didn’t get to see her enough after I joined SHIELD. The last five years of her life, I was so...busy. And then she was gone.”

“I bet she was really proud of you, though.”

Coulson squeezes her harder, and she probably enjoys the warmth of him against her way too much. It feels like forever since he’s been this open with her, and maybe there’s been a part of her that thought that this part of their relationship, where there’s hugging and comfort and him taking down his walls — something more personal than just the professional relationship of two SHIELD agents — was gone forever.

Or, worse, sometimes she’s thought maybe she imagined it all, that they were never actually that close.

But the way Coulson breathes against her hair, the way he holds onto her like she means so much to him, it settles something in her chest.

When they wander back downstairs, Grace is in the kitchen, stirring a pot of marinara with the kitchen phone cord stretched around her ear.

“If you need to come home, you can,” she’s reassuring someone — quite obviously baby Phil — on the other end. “Okay, my dear.”

 _I’m not a deer_ , Daisy watches Coulson mouth, obviously in time with baby Phil on the phone, some regular call-and-response between mother and son.

“You’re _my_ little deer,” Grace Coulson responds in a sing-song voice, and big Coulson smiles.

There’s a silence on her end before she laughs and says her goodbyes.

She jumps a little when she turns around to see her guests, but shakes her head at herself.

“Phillip does better at home more often than not since his father passed,” she tells them by way of explanation. “I think he just pretends to be scared because he’s worried about me.”

Coulson smiles at that, nostalgic and sad like that’s exactly what he would do, and Daisy squeezes his fingers.

“He sounds like a good kid,” Coulson offers, still obviously awkward to too emotional with all of this, but trying.

“He is,” Grace agrees, setting her spoon down on the counter. “I was telling your wife earlier that when you have one of your own, you’re always going to be proud of him, but Phillip is such a good boy.”

There’s a long silence in the room, and Daisy is a little worried that both other inhabitants are going to start crying. It’s funny to think that Grace and Coulson are probably thinking about the same things. Coulson’s mother is the one that finally breaks it.

“I’m fixing spaghetti and meatballs,” she tells them, shaking herself out of her moment. “I hope that sounds okay.” They both nod, Coulson with the kind of enthusiasm that says this is a meal he used to love. “I don’t keep much around that’s more difficult than spaghetti or grilled cheese.”

“Grilled cheese?” Daisy asks.

“Phillip’s favorite. He makes it for me when I have to work late.”

Coulson’s cheeks are pink when Daisy turns to look at him, and her heart hurts at what a sweet man he is — what a sweet boy he still is inside.

“Does he have a secret ingredient?”

“Of course,” Grace laughs. “Passed down through the Coulson family. He won’t even tell me what it is.”

Daisy smirks at Coulson, who raises his eyebrows in return. She’s incredibly amused by the way his mouth twitches, like he’s trying to hold back a smile.

“I just need to go out to the garage to get a few jars of tomatoes,” Grace announces. “Would you like to see my son’s pride and joy? It’s a Corvette he and his father restored. Men seem to like her,” she directs the last snarky comment at Daisy, who laughs.

“I think Rob will be no different.”

Coulson is careful as he steps through the kitchen and into the garage, his fingers still wound through hers, and he doesn’t let go until Lola is in sight and he’s pulled towards her.

“She’s a beauty,” Coulson whispers. It’s somehow shocking to Daisy, the way she looks _exactly_ like the Lola she knows, but she isn’t really, not yet.

“My James loved her so much I was jealous sometimes,” Grace jokes, and touches the paint job very softly. “He used to call her _Lola_ , the other woman in his life.” She rolls her eyes, but smiles fondly as she thinks of her late husband.

“I’m sure your son loves her too,” Daisy hazards as she watches Coulson hold back his own need to touch.

“Oh yes. But it took a while. She’s grown on him,” Grace laughs. “I think he was horrified when his father first brought her home, but now he about pitched a fit when I suggested we sell her.”

“You can’t sell her,” Coulson jumps in, alarmed. “This car will be worth a fortune one day,” he covers himself.

“That’s what James always said,” Grace laughs, “but I wouldn’t sell something that means that much anyways.”

Coulson nods and seemingly gives in, letting himself drag his index finger across Lola’s hood while Grace turns away and grabs her jar of home-preserved tomatoes.

It obviously takes a lot of willpower for Coulson to turn away from Lola, but she can see him scanning the garage to find the boxes of his dad’s stuff — tucked over in a corner, but clearly something that young Phillip has gone through recently.

“I just need to go set the table,” Grace announces, excusing herself from the garage. Daisy insists on helping, following her towards the kitchen as she shoots a meaningful look back at Coulson — he’ll search through the boxes, now, while there’s a moment.

“You have a lovely home,” Daisy sighs while they finish preparing the meal. “I haven’t been so sure about moving up here, but…”

“It lacks a little something if you’re used to big city life,” Grace admits. “I’m originally from Boston, and there’s...a bit more to do out that way.”

“But here grows on you?”

“It does,” Grace admits. “I’ll miss it. And I know Phillip will.”

Daisy clears her throat.

“What do you do for fun around here?”

They’re five minutes into a discussion of the public parks and shopping malls in the area when Coulson walks back inside and nods at her meaningfully, something incredibly relieved in his eye.

She raises her eyebrows — shocked he could have found it so quickly. He pats his pocket, though, and she nods.

She wonders if they’re supposed to go right now, to forego a homecooked meal, but like it’s voicing an opinion, her stomach growls loud enough for both Grace and Coulson to hear it. She’s _starving_ , running on nothing but a candy bar hours after a big fight.

“Can I help set the table?” Coulson asks, making the decision for them.

 

* * *

 

Dinner strangely lightens up, as Grace tells them about the town and Coulson tells them both about his own thinly veiled childhood memories of small school classes and summers at the pool or playing baseball — ostensibly Rob convincing Laura of what a good idea it will be to move back out this way.

“I never knew you played _that_ much baseball,” Daisy laughs at his story about his team.

“Tons. When I was eight or nine, our team went to the world little league championship,” Coulson shares.

“Phillip’s team did that last year,” Grace laughs. “We had a great time. His father was so proud of him, and for two weeks after the pizza place in town gave the whole team free slices.”

“That’s a big deal,” Daisy laughs. “Does the town always shut down for little league games?”

“ _Always_ ,” Grace and Coulson answer at the same time.

“It’s big out here, and like I said, there’s not always a lot to do otherwise. But it grows on you.”

“I don’t know anything about the game,” Daisy shares, frowning as though this is a real concern — as though she’ll actually have to live somewhere with no WiFi where kids baseball is the primary form of entertainment.

“Don’t worry. It’s fun anyways, especially when one of the kids is yours.”

“I’m not sure my mother ever understood the game,” Coulson tells Daisy, almost teasing.

“Oh, she didn’t need to understand it to be proud of you,” Grace tells him matter-of-fact, so that Coulson’s cheeks visibly heat up.

They end up talking for hours, and she hasn’t seen Coulson _laugh_ so much in a year, maybe ever; she finds herself almost jealous of the rapport he seems to find with his mother. The truth is that even after _everything_ , she would give a lot to be able to talk to her mother like this, her mother before Whitehall got to her, her mother who Cal said was a good sweet gentle person.

It’s like Coulson knows what she’s thinking about, because he reaches over and sets his left hand on her knee as he eats, a comforting familiar touch that pulls her back into the moment.

They’re having such a good time that they don’t notice when a summer shower starts up and then quickly becomes a thunderstorm. So when Coulson looks over at her meaningfully and announces that they should be on their way, Grace gives them both a raised eyebrow.

“I didn’t see a car out front, which means you two walked here. And I can’t let you leave in _that_.”

For the first time, they see the pouring rain outside, and Coulson frowns.

“We’ve been in worse,” Daisy supplies.

“Honestly, what harm will it do for you to stay in the guest room for the night? It’ll pass by morning.”

It doesn’t sound like the worst idea she’s ever heard. It’s likely to be too dark in the barn, where they’ve left their stuff buried under a small pile of hay, to fix the machine that brought them here. And sleeping in a bed sounds a lot better than sleeping in a leaky wet barn full of hay.

“Yeah,” Daisy finally accepts. “That sounds great.”

She can feel Coulson staring at her, though, something questioning and maybe scared in his expression.

 

* * *

 

It’s awkward again as they close the door of the small guest room behind them, each holding a change of clothes for the night, supplied from Grace’s closet. She’s not sure she can do it, though — climb into bed with Coulson while she wears one of his mother’s nightgowns and he wears his father’s pajamas.

It's so...oedipal or something. 

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he offers.

“Don’t be stupid, Phil.”

“It’s a small bed, Daisy.”

They look at it together like it’s some sort of terrifying beast. It’s not a twin, but not as large as a queen. Even Grace had expressed concern that it might be too small.

“If you’re bothered, _I’ll_ take the floor —”

He frowns at her.

“Or we could just be adults about it,” she suggests.

Coulson nods once.

Outside, the rain is pounding on the windows, and Daisy rubs her forehead.

“What’s our play here? Sneak out as soon as it’s done raining, or stay until morning?”

“Until morning, I guess,” Coulson sighs.

“Yeah,” she agrees, then looks down at the nightgown in her hands and unfurls it, a little shocked when it turns out to be a lot shorter and lacier than she’d have imagined.

Coulson chokes as he takes in the way it barely falls below her hips, the way the straps are clearly designed to leave _a lot_ of cleavage exposed and very little of her body to the imagination.

“Phil?”

“Yeah,” he gasps in a breath, and turns away from her.

“Are you…”

“I think I would have been a lot happier never thinking about my mother wearing that.”

Daisy starts laughing and collapses down on the bed.

“I can’t wear this,” she giggles. “I think you’d probably die of embarrassment, for one.”

It would be kind of nice, maybe, if he’d die because of how hot she’d look, but that’s not exactly the world she lives in.

“Here,” he hands her the button-down top of his pajamas as he speaks. “It’ll be…” He glances down at the nightgown again. “...warmer.”

“Not so much for you, though.”

“I’m wearing an undershirt. It’ll be fine.”

Daisy laughs and stands up from the bed.

“Turn around?”

He does, and she can hear the sounds of fabric shifting behind her as she changes, tugging her tank and bra off before slipping the oversized shirt on. It’s hard not to think about the fact that for one brief moment she and Coulson are both partially naked in the room together.

And then they’re not.

She buttons up the shirt all the way before slipping out of her boots and pants, letting the red flannel fall to almost mid-thigh. Coulson’s father, she guesses, was a larger man than Coulson.

“Are you…”

Coulson’s voice sounds a little shaky.

“Yeah,” Daisy answers, and they turn around together.

She almost gasps, this embarrassing longing little sound that makes her flush.

She wasn’t expecting his shoulders, is the thing. When Coulson said _undershirt_ she had imagined a proper  _shirt_ , not a tank. But Coulson stands in front of her in a white tank with the red flannel pants, and she’s not sure she’s ever actually seen his shoulders before, or so much of the skin around his collar bone.

And _Coulson is sexy_ isn’t exactly a newsflash. It’s pretty much the least surprising thing ever, actually, but it just hits her so _hard_ as she looks at all the muscles and chest hair peeking up over the top of his shirt.

It takes her a long time to realize that she’s just standing by the side of the bed, staring at his arms.

He breaks her weird trance by clearing his throat, but when he moves, she can just see how big the pants are on him, the way he’s rolled the waist, and how they still slip down to show a little peek of his bare hip under his tank.

She wants to touch him there, which is...a problem.

“Do you mind if I…” He touches his left arm, like she might somehow object to him taking it off.

“Of course not.”

He nods once, and she wonders at it — at his seeming reticence — and does her best not to watch too closely as he twists the hand off and leaves it (with the watch still attached) on the sidetable.

They climb into bed, and she knows she’s making things awkward by sliding as far as she can to the edge, but her legs are bare and he has _shoulders_ , and what else is she supposed to do?

In a bed this small, though, his right arm still touches her left, even when they scoot to the edges of the mattress. She can feel him, warm even through the long sleeve of her shirt, as she tries to settle down.

“Goodnight,” she whispers.

“Night.”

But they don’t go to sleep.

Or, well, _she_ doesn’t go to sleep and she’s pretty sure Coulson doesn’t either.

His breathing stays the same — doesn’t slow or smooth out — and she thinks they’re both kind of faking it, lying way too still on their backs.

He’s so _present_ , warm and solid next to her. She can almost feel heat radiating off of him, and the reality of his body, of his skin, is too much to handle. It’s also obvious that he’s hugging the edge of the mattress as much as she is, his body tense and coiled next to hers in a way that makes her want to touch him, to relax him.

He’s so present and warm and solid and also partly undressed, and all she can think about is the muscles on his upper arms, the hair on his right forearm, the shocking reality of his naked left arm without his hand attached — something he’s been so careful to keep private from her before now.

He’s so present and warm and solid and partly undressed with naked arms, and also wearing pajama pants that are a little too large on him. She thinks about the skin just below his hip, the flat plane with the little cut of muscle above it, the fact that he didn’t seem to be wearing anything underneath his too-big pajama pants.

Daisy squirms in the bed, frustrated with the places her mind is running.

She moves, trying to get comfortable, and bends her knee just a little bit. When her bare leg comes into contact with the plaid pajama pants he’s wearing, she swears he sucks in a breath. It’s really tempting to just leave her leg touching his — she presses it there for too long — but she finally pulls back.

It feels like maybe an hour has passed, though it’s probably been less, when she clears her throat.

“Coulson?”

“Mmhmm?”

“Are you awake?”

“Yeah,” he answers, maybe a trace of a laugh.

“I can’t sleep.”

“Yeah, it’s a little tight.”

Coulson’s quiet for a long moment, and then she hears him draw in a slow breath.

“Come here,” he whispers, extending his right arm under shoulders and pulling her towards him. She rolls slightly to pillow her head on his right shoulder, her cheek on his bare skin.

It takes her a few minutes to relax, to melt against the heat of him as she breathes him in. Slowly, though, they fit together — his right arm curves behind her back, her leg slips over his thigh as she presses closer, her arm rests on his chest.

“Okay?” He whispers the question so close to her ear that she can’t help the shiver that runs down her back, or the way she snuggles more completely into his side.

“Yeah. Much better.”

It is, actually. The solid warmth of him that was so distracting before is just comforting, and every breath he takes lulls her to sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

They wake as the sun rises, the room positioned so that the early morning light streams through a gap in the curtains.

Daisy tries to bury her face more securely in Coulson’s neck, blocking out the light, and she can feel him stir, feel his arm tighten around her as he draws in a slow breath.

“Can we sleep a while longer?”

Daisy asks the question, though she feels more than a little pathetic doing it. She’s used to waking up before the sun, after all, and the only reason to stay in bed is so she can spend more time pressed up against Coulson.

“Yeah,” Coulson answers, and she swears she can feel him lean down enough to press his nose to the top of her head.

She nods and tries to curl herself back into a comfortable position, maybe to even fall back asleep, but when she moves her leg, she brushes again his obvious erection under the flannel pajamas, and Coulson groans.

Daisy freezes, her thigh pressed against him, and Coulson’s hand smooths down her shirt until he’s pressing his whole palm against her lower back, almost like he’s holding her in place. Her lower body throbs at the feel of his fingers brushing almost against the top of her butt, and she can’t help the slight rocking motion she makes against his hip as the shiver of sensation works up her spine.

Coulson groans again, and then goes unnaturally still, like he’s stopped even breathing.

“Phil?”

She can feel him swallow.

“Yeah?”

“Do you…”

She doesn’t actually know what she means to ask, though; doesn’t really have anything to say, and the pause hangs heavy between them.

Deliberately, she shifts her leg, brushing against him on purpose, and Coulson moans into it, tilts his hips towards her leg. And there’s this warning bell in her head that tells her this is a bad idea, that this might ruin _everything_ , but all she can think about is that it might also make everything better.

She chooses the reckless option and rolls herself fully on top of Coulson, her knees falling on either side of his hips so that when she sits back against him, she can feel him pressed between her legs, hot and hard.

“Daisy,” he grunts her name and wraps his fingers around her hip bone. She can see how his left arm reaches towards her before he lets it fall to his side, and his right hand squeezes harder.

Slowly, she circles her hips over him, making the move as deliberately sexual as she knows how until he’s moaning underneath her.

But she doesn’t know how to take it from here, how to push things forward. Luckily, Coulson makes up for it by sliding his hand up her back until he’s tugging her down over him, his fingers pressing into the back of her neck as he guides her lips to his.

He doesn’t kiss her, though, instead just holds her right on top of him and sucks in a breath.

“Daisy,” he whispers her name urgently, and she can almost feel his lips against her as he speaks.

She kisses him before he has a chance to ask, open mouthed and too hot for the guest room at his mother’s house. He kisses back, though, desperate and deep with his hand gripping at her neck like he’s afraid she’ll pull away too soon.

His left arm lands on her upper back as his right hand ventures down, cupping her ass and encouraging her to keep moving her hips over his as they kiss. Heat builds between her thighs, the kind of ache that sears through her and makes her _need_ more.

When she finally breaks the kiss, he whimpers and chases her mouth upwards, stopped only by the sight of her fingers working down the buttons of her flannel shirt.

Coulson’s breath speeds up noticeably as he watches the process, and she’s barely revealed the sliver of skin between the two halves of the shirt when he’s sliding his hand up between her breasts, like he’s desperate to touch her.

“God, Daisy,” he breathes her name as he pushes her shirt aside and stretches his fingers across her breast while his left arm presses against her lower back. She shivers and then grunts when he drags his fingers across her nipple, leaning further into his palm in response.

Every muscle in her body clenches, the stab between her legs almost unbearable, and she reaches between them to run her hands down Coulson’s chest and touch his cock.

He groans when Daisy slips her hand under his pants to wrap her palm around him, and his hand slides down her chest and then up between her legs. There’s a breath as his finger slips over the crotch of her panties, and she moves her hips enough to accommodate his touch as he works his fingers underneath.

Daisy doesn’t moan so much as _exhale_ really hard as his fingers press inside of her, slipping too easily because of her arousal.

She rides his fingers as best she can, but they provide nowhere near enough friction, and it quickly just grows frustrating.

“Phil, can we just…” She stills on top of him and licks her lips.

It’s too fast — she knows it’s too fast, that this is all too fast — but she just _needs_ him, and she can’t bring herself to care about consequences to their relationship right now.

“I don’t have a condom,” he manages, though he also pulls his fingers away and sucks them into his mouth — she watches with wide eyes and her lips slightly parted as he licks away the taste of her.

“We don’t need it,” she tells him, too adamant and then suddenly nervous. “I mean, as long as you’re okay with that.”

“Yes,” he answers, and she raises over him, trying to get out of her underwear.

He helps as much as he can by sliding his pants down his hips so that when she drops back down over him, she can feel his cock slip up against her clit, not quite positioned to push inside of her.

Coulson grips himself to line them up and then pauses, licks his lips, and looks almost hesitant.

“I never had sex with anyone under my mother’s roof,” he admits, and her eyes widen.

Daisy clears her throat, tries to find her voice.

“Do you want to stop?”

“No,” he answers, almost a laugh. “I just meant… I’m glad it’s you. And that you got to meet her.”

He looks so _at peace_ about it, about being here, after all the turmoil he was feeling earlier.

“I’m glad, too,” she whispers, feeling her chin quiver slightly in a way that’s not exactly conducive to the sexing, but also it feels like Coulson might as well have just told her she’s his one true love, and her heart is pounding and her eyes are misting over.

She takes a breath, tries to calm herself.

“Plus, if the nightgown is any indication, we have your mother’s approval.”

He chuckles at that, and tugs her mouth down against his as he pushes his hips upwards, so he’s suddenly _filling_ her, and she nearly collapses.

“Coulson,” she gasps, overwhelmed by the momentary twinge of the stretch and then the blinding goodness of how he feels inside of her.

He snaps his hips up, building the sensation, and it’s embarrassing — really, really embarrassing — how quickly she comes, how little it takes to leave her shuddering into his shoulder. But he feels so big inside of her, and so warm underneath her, that her body won’t stop tingling.

Coulson just stays still and strokes his hand down her back, like he’s content to stop here if that’s what she wants.

“Daisy,” he whispers against the top of her head. “Can you —”

“Yes,” she answers, trying to gather herself enough to keep going.

He’s the one that scrambles back up the bed a little bit, pulling her with him so he’s leaning against the headboard and Daisy can wrap her legs around him and say collapsed against his chest, rocking her hips just enough to create friction.

It feels endless like his, kissing his lips and his neck as they slowly move together.

Coulson’s head dips down enough that he can press his lips near her ear, and in between shallow gasps, he whispers her name like it’s some kind of magic spell, the object of his awe and wonder.

His voice settles something in her chest, all those alarm bells she's been ignoring fall silent as they rock together, easily until Coulson can't seem to hold back a need to touch her. His right hand curves from her shoulder to her breast, down her back to touch her ass, like he can’t get enough. Daisy digs her fingers into his shoulders in response, touching warm skin and firm muscles and the dusting of hair, and her answering urgency seems to spur him on.

WIth his left arm anchored against her back, Coulson drops his right between them and presses two fingers to her clit, just pressure as she moves her hips. The extra layer of stimulation is enough to make her groan and move faster, dragging him with her into another orgasm.

They’re sweaty and still more dressed than undressed as they pant against each other’s necks, his cock still half-hard inside of her, when those alarm bells come back.

“You’re not gonna freak out now, are you?” Daisy asks with her face still buried in his neck, afraid to look at his face.

“No,” he answers, sounding bemused.

“Because sometimes it seems like we get close and then you…”

He laughs, something almost sad near her ear.

“Sometimes we’d get close, and I’d want…”

“This?”

“Yeah,” he answers, and his hand slides up her back, under her open shirt. “And I didn’t imagine that…”

She can feel him swallow.

“I figured you knew I had a crush on you from, like, the first day I met you.”

His hands stills on her back.

“Just a crush?”

Daisy can’t help a little laugh at his sudden reserve.

“It’s...grown a bit since then,” she reassures him, still too embarrassed to look up into his eyes.

“That’s good,” he whispers. “Because I…”

Whatever he might have found the courage to say is cut off when his cellphone rings from the side table.

They both stare at it in shock — it makes absolutely no sense for it to work, and the strangeness is enough to make her pull away.

She buttons her shirt as Coulson answers it because he doesn’t know what else to do.

“Hello?”

“Sir!”

Fitz’s voice is loud as they hold it between their ears.

“Fitz?”

“I _told_ you I could get it to work,” Fitz is saying to someone, and they can both hear Simmons respond:

“Yes, you were right, Fitz. Could you focus on this for a minute before you start gloating, though?”

“Right, sorry.”

“Are you okay, sir? Daisy?”

Simmons sounds worried, and Daisy feels a little bad for enjoying being stuck in the past while their friends are worried about them.

“Yes,” Daisy answers. “We’re fine. Just…”

“Back in time,” Simmons supplies, like they’ve clearly figured all this out. “When did you end up?”

“1974,” Daisy tells her, and can’t quite help looking at Coulson’s face as she says it.

“So do you have a way to get us back?” Coulson asks, though he leans in and nuzzles against her ear as he does, some quiet reassurance that whatever this is isn’t staying in the past.

“Err, yes and no,” Fitz answers. “I think I understand how it works, so if you tell me —”

“That crystal,” Daisy tells him. “It’s cracked. We think we found a new one, though.”

“Then I can walk you through fixing it,” Fitz tells her. “Do you have it now?”

“No. Can you call my phone again in two hours?”

“Yes,” Fitz answers, and they quickly hang up.

As Coulson is setting the phone back down on the nightstand, though, they both look up as the door cracks slightly open, and they can see a young boy watching them through the crack with wide eyes.

“Is that a communicator?”

Daisy’s covered by her pajama top, but still scrambles under the covers, keeping her lower half hidden. Coulson, however, grins at the boy and slides easily out of bed, tugging his pajama pants into place as he does so.

“Sort of,” he answers, and reaches for his robotic hand. Baby Phil watches, fascinated, as Coulson puts it on.

“You’re spies, aren’t you?”

He looks terribly excited about this possibility.

“Sort of,” Coulson answers again as he walks to the door and kneels down so he’s face to face with his younger self.

“Spies are real,” baby Phil repeats, like it’s the coolest thing that’s ever happened, his eyes glued to Coulson’s robot hand.

“We are,” he agrees. “But don’t tell anyone yet, can you do that for me?”

“Yes,” the boy agrees.

“Even your mother.”

Baby Phil looks hesitant about keeping something from his mom, but nods.

“I don’t want her to worry about spies,” he tells older Phil, face solemn and serious.

“Good man,” Coulson agrees, touching the boy gently on the shoulder with his robotic hand. “Here,” he whispers conspiratorially as he takes off his watch. “Keep this secret. You’ll need it one day.”

Baby Phil takes the watch like it’s a magical artifact and nods again before disappearing into his room to hide his treasure.

When Coulson turns back from the door, he looks somewhere between awed and amused.

“You remember that,” Daisy suggests.

“I do. I became obsessed with the idea that my dad was a spy and I started researching all this conspiracy history of spycraft.” He rubs his hand down his face.

“It made you, you?”

“I can’t think about that right now,” he laughs, but looks strangely lighter as she rises from their bed and get dressed.

Before she can even make a move towards her clothes, though, Coulson catches her hand and pulls her up against him. There’s maybe a flash of concern — like he’s not entirely sure this is okay — but he covers over it by pressing his lips against hers.

He’s smiling almost too much to kiss, but they manage.

 

* * *

 

Both Coulson and Daisy hug Grace Coulson goodbye on their way out.

“You have a lovely wife,” she tells Coulson as she pats him on the shoulder, “you’re a lucky man.”

“I know,” Coulson answers, this certainty in his voice that makes Daisy's cheeks heat up.

“And don’t worry,” she tells Daisy as she hugs her, “you’ll like it here. And the two of you will have a beautiful family.”

It makes her blush even more — suddenly, terrifyingly, wonderfully more real than it was the day before.

Little Phillip makes an appearance as they stand at the front door, peeking through the door from the hallway like he’s checking up on his mother.

“You didn’t get to meet my little dear,” Grace tells them, calling to Phillip to come and meet some new people.

“I’m not a deer,” Phillip whispers as he walks to his mother and gets a kiss on top of his head.

It’s so cute, Daisy has to turn her head into Phil’s chest, to hide her giddy smile there for a moment before she can officially shake little Phillip’s hand.

He watches them with awe and a little suspicion, his mother’s little deer and also her protector, and he’s just so _Coulson_ , it almost hurts.

Daisy shakes his hand easily, and then Coulson surprises him by offering him his left hand, letting the boy feel the not-quite-realistic sensation of synthetic flesh. Little Phil grins at that, and she remembers his awed voice earlier — _spies are real_.

She grins entirely too much as they make their final goodbyes.

They link hands as they get out the door, and walk in silence towards where they’ve stashed all their stuff, both of them lost in their own heads. She can’t help but think about families and homes and normal lives — stuff she’s never really let herself want before.

She can’t help but wonder if Coulson is doing the same.

Fitz calls again and walks them through fixing the machine, and it’s so easy it feels anticlimactic.

“Ready?”

He asks the question as she’s strapping back on her holster and utility belt, making sure they’ve left nothing behind.

Daisy presses a kiss to his shoulder and then his lips when he turns to her.

“Yeah. How are you?”

“I’m good,” he answers, like he’s almost surprised. “This was...good.”

“Not too painful?”

“No. I think…” He swallows. “I thought I had lost something.” More than his hand. On that planet, he means. She knows that he feels like he lost a part of himself in killing Ward, in losing his would-be girlfriend. “And now I feel like maybe I never did.”

“You’re still a little deer,” she tells him, and can see his cheeks turn pink.

“I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

“ _Never_ ,” she agrees, grinning at his faux-frown. “Sexy little deer?”

Coulson laughs at that and kisses her deeply, making her groan at the feel of his tongue brushing against her lower lip.

“I can’t help but wish we could spend more time like this before we go back,” he sighs against her mouth.

“Yeah?”

“To be together without...SHIELD and missions.”

“Like normal people?”

“Does that sound stupid?”

“No,” Daisy answers. “But when we’re back…”

“We’ll figure it out,” he promises her, his hand firm against her back.

She kisses him as they activate the device, and whispers against his lips:

“I know.”


End file.
